I've read every book about aerial combat in England & Europe during WWII that I could lay my hands on... including most of those books in the Dayton library.
From what I read, the Spitfires could out-turn the Bf109s and the P-51 could out-turn the Spitfires.
Speed-wise, the Bf109E and Bf109G were faster than their contemporary Spitfire "Marks", but the P-51 was faster than both the "Spits" and the Bf109s.
Generally, the Spitfire and the Bf109 were fairly evenly matched... depending on what maneuver was being made, but that change with the entry of the P-51D and the introduction of the FW190A when they made their appearance.
That made the P-51s faster in level flight speed and tighter turning than either the Spitfires or the Bf109s. The P-51D was the faster in level flight and could out-climb the Spitfires and Bf109s as well. Many a German pilot found his aircraft stalling out it a "hard" tactical climb against a P-51 which allowed the P-51 pilot to maintain his climb longer, then turn on the tail of the stalled-out and hapless German in the Bf109 who then usually got shot down as his aircraft fell away.
One "problem" the Spitfires had was when the first Mark I came out and it started out with what was a lack of "fire-power" since the "Spits" had "rifle-caliber" (British .303) machineguns while even the first Bf109Es (Emil's) had both machineguns and 20mm cannons... and one or two "hits" from the 20mm cannon shells usually wrote "Finis" to any other fighter aircraft including the Hurricanes and Spitfires.
The British Beaufighter Mark 1 was only used in the early part of the war as a "stop-gap" fighter. It was far too heavy (16,000 lbs) and too slow (335 MPH) compared to other contemporary fighters, but could still catch the even slower contemporary German bombers. It was replaced by the all wooden De Havilland Mosquito fighter/bomber which had both greater speed and heavier fire-power.
All of this said... my favorite World War II fighter aircraft of the major participants in WW2 were the British Spitfire Mark IX (Mark 9), the American P-51D and the German FW-190... all great fighter aircraft !
Strength & Honor...
Ron T.
